


I Picked You

by Psilent (HereThereBeFic)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e16 Doctor Bashir I Presume, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s05e16 Doctor Bashir I Presume
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:39:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1507493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereThereBeFic/pseuds/Psilent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We weren't... supposed to be friends." Post-<em>Doctor Bashir, I Presume</em>. Three conversations Julian doesn't know how to have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Picked You

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Spoilers. Alcohol. Mentions of violence, injuries, sickness. Internalized ableism probably?? References to medical procedures performed on a child without that child's knowledge or consent.

Garak came into the infirmary complaining of a headache, which was the sloppiest lie he had ever attempted. The gleam in his eyes as he sat cheerfully down on a biobed said that he didn’t care.

_"Really,_ Doctor,” he said, as Julian crossed his arms and glared and did not even pretend he was going to examine his head. “I’m _delighted_ by this turn of events.”

"Of _course_ you are.”

"I can honestly say I _never_ suspected such a thing.”

Julian turned away and busied himself rearranging various instruments. Garak kept right on talking.

"Oh, _something,_ certainly, don’t congratulate yourself just yet.” Wouldn’t the detronal scanner be better off near the optometric array? He felt and ignored Garak’s eyes following him as he moved around the room. Where _had_ he left that handheld sanitizer?

"Quite often I said to myself, no one as astute and analytical as Doctor Bashir can possibly be so _genuinely_ naïve.” Surely this dermal regenerator belonged in a drawer somewhere. Somewhere far away from Garak. The overcrowded drawer that he’d been meaning to organize for months now, maybe, which would require a lot of fumbling around to make room. Couldn’t be helped.

"I knew you were hiding _something_ —in a more deliberate way than everyone else is. But _genetic enhancements?”_

Still clutching an exoscalpel in one hand, Julian whirled around. An empty tray on the edge of the drawer overbalanced and clattered to the ground at his heels. “Say it a little louder, why don’t you!”

Garak didn’t even blink. “And why don’t I? Why don’t _you?_ ”

Julian clenched his jaw. It was too soon, and he had heard too much gossip, pretended not to see too many dirty looks, to be amused. “You know perfectly well _why.”_

Garak inclined his head and leaned forward on the edge of the biobed, an infuriating mixture of sympathetic contriteness and gleeful respect. “I do.”

-

It only took about a day for his shame to overcome his cowardice. He found Jadzia at Quark’s, drinking and laughing with a crowd of strangers.

She noticed him and he tried to wave her off, leave her to her friends, they could do this _later_ —but she excused herself from the table and a few seconds later they were secluded at a smaller one in a corner, and Julian wished he had a drink to focus on.

Jadzia was smiling, leaning back in her chair, looking like she knew everything in the world including everything he was about to say. He wished she’d tell him.

"I’m sorry," he blurted out, and she raised an eyebrow at him and waited.

"I, I—we…" He ran his hands through his hair and growled at himself. "We weren’t… supposed to be friends."

She barked out a laugh. “A little late for that, Julian. I can buy a drink to throw in your face, if you really want me to.”

"That’s not—I’m sorry, I’m…"

He made himself look her in the eye. “I don’t tell people. When I’m…”

"Doggedly pursuing them?"

"…Well, yes. I haven’t… I haven’t been in a serious romantic relationship for… a long time. I haven’t _wanted_ to be. I knew I couldn’t maintain one, with that hanging over me all the time, and it wouldn’t be fair to the other person.”

He thought of Melora, thought of all the half-formed plans of revealing the truth and all the possible outcomes that had haunted his dreams, thought of the mingled disappointment and relief and _shame_ when she had opted to leave the station.

He thought of Leeta, thought of the freedom of a relationship neither of them had expected to last, thought of the regret that still bit at him because she wasn’t Starfleet, she wasn’t a part of the Federation, maybe she wouldn’t have _cared_ —

He thought of Garak. He thought of lies.

He hoped Jadzia would accept this lie for what it was: an oversimplification.

Jadzia rolled her eyes and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “So what _exactly_ did you expect from _me,_ Julian? What did you even _want?”_

He let out a breath. Okay. Good. That was easy enough to answer. “The same thing I expected from anyone else I’d ever… taken an interest in. Total rejection followed by avoidance, or a yes and a one night stand.”

"You thought we could have carried on working together and being professional after a one night stand?"

"You think we couldn’t have?"

She shrugged. “ _I_ could have.”

Julian smiled, despite himself, and it made his face ache. “I wasn’t accustomed to being cooped up on a space station with someone who… enjoyed the chase. I _can_ actually take a hint, I promise, and I could tell you… Ugh, no, that sounds horrifying even in my own head. No. Nevermind.”

"You could tell I liked it," Jadzia said flatly. "You’re not wrong. It was fun! I _enjoy_ a good flirt, Julian. It makes life interesting. I knew you would never do anything I didn’t want you to. You backed off every time I made it clear I was done playing.”

"Well." He rubbed the back of his neck and felt like he should be apologizing for ever getting to the point of _needing_ to back off, but also felt like it would annoy her. “At any rate. I… I _like_ you, you know. Once I got over myself and accepted that you weren’t interested, I. I realized we’d become _friends,_ somewhere along the way, and. I didn’t know what to do. I—I didn’t know what to do with _anybody_ , I’ve gotten closer to people on this station than I had for _years_ before I came out here, but… I’m sorry. I don’t suppose you ever actually _read_ those dreadful medical school diaries I gave you in a fit of self importance?”

Jadzia’s smile vanished. Julian bit his tongue and wondered what he’d done wrong. He knew this had been going too well.

She took a deep breath. “You remember the T’Lani and the Kellarun?”

He winced. “I try not to. Why?”

"When we all thought you were dead, I realized I still hadn’t looked at the journals."

"…Oh." He wasn’t sure what else to say to that. His mouth felt dry.

Jadzia tapped her fingers on the table. “Once you were back on the station, I started to look through them.” The smile crept back onto her face. “I didn’t get very far.”

Julian snorted. “I can’t say I blame you.”

"I assume I didn’t miss something like ‘Dear Diary, today I spent a lot of time thinking about how I was genetically modified against my will as a child’?"

"Not exactly, no. I thought maybe… If you ever _did_ read through them, you might be able to… guess. I wasn’t really, uhm, _hoping_ or anything, I don’t think. I suppose it was… a gesture. Pretty empty one, seeing as you had no way of knowing about it.”

Her smile widened. “You trusted me.”

He couldn’t quite match it. “As much as I trusted anyone, yes. I had never let anyone read those diaries unedited, because I was terrified they’d work it out. I found I… was _less_ terrified by you. …I, I am really, _really_ bad at this, but I mean that as a compliment.”

"I’ll take it."

-

He had no idea what to do about Miles.

Jadzia had been friendly, but also expectant. She’d been, at the very least, _slightly_ insulted, and waiting for some sort of explanation.

Miles seemed perfectly content to simply move on.

Julian’s conscience refused to allow this, however much he begged it.

Finally, after a week of awkward moping and entirely unproductive angry monologues ranted into a mirror, he found himself in the O’Briens’ quarters with half a glass of synthale and a pounding stress headache.

He set the glass down, because he wasn’t drunk yet and changing that fact would not help matters. “Miles,” he said, and the man in question looked up from the PADD he’d started reading once it had become apparent that Julian was going to be very boring and also not leave.

"Hm?"

"Why aren’t you angry?"

"…About _what?”_ Miles narrowed his eyes, looking suspicious, probably wondering what had broken on the station _now._

"I _lied_ to you.”

"What?"

"About—about—"

"What, your—?" Miles tilted his head and blinked. "Wh— You didn’t exactly have much of a choice in the matter, from beginning to end, did you?"

"I had a _choice_ of whether or not to—” Julian snapped, got stuck, and shook his head.

Miles set the PADD aside and leaned forward in his chair, frowning across the low table between them. “Whether or not to what?”

"Be— _this!_ You know…” Julian waved a hand about, trying to encompass the room, the two of them, and everything that had led to the fact that it was only slightly irritating for him to show up here unannounced and sit brooding not-drunkenly for half an hour.

Miles chuckled. “I think the word you might be looking for is _friends.”_

_"Yes._ Exactly. I sought you out, Miles, you know I did! You hated it!”

"Only at first! I warmed up a bit once you pulled a man with a knife away from me. You’d be surprised how far that sort of thing goes."

"I _liked_ you,” Julian pressed on. “Before we knew each other, I liked you, I thought you were _interesting,_ I thought, there’s a man I could have a conversation with, if I can get him to not hate me.”

"Uh." Miles reached forward and lifted Julian’s glass in a toast. "Mission accomplished?"

"That’s not the point! The point is I shouldn’t have done it! …Please don’t throw that in my face."

"What?"

"Nothing. Sorry. I just… I was… I was _lonely_. I didn’t have any friends, I—I was _used_ to not having friends, but. It was… getting to me. Before I came here, I had a long _string_ of people who weren’t my friends, but on the station, I was _stuck_ with everyone, and it just got so— _isolating_ , trying to keep myself _walled off_ , from _everyone,_ every _day_ , and I just. I gave in, I _lost,_ I couldn’t _do_ it anymore and I _picked you.”_

"I’m flattered."

"No!"

"What?"

"No, you don’t _get it,_ I spent our _entire friendship_ up until _last week_ — _lying_ to you. And—and—and you’re not even _angry_.”

"You have to keep yourself safe, Julian! I can hardly hold that against you!"

Julian laughed. He laughed loud and hard, thankful that Keiko and the kids weren’t home, and he buried his head in his hands and rasped, “It killed me.”

Miles didn’t speak for a long moment. When he did, he sounded… careful. “What?”

Julian closed his eyes. “Lying to you,” he said. “It _killed me,_ Miles.”

"Julian…"

"You’re my best friend," Julian said miserably. "My _best friend,_ Miles, not just here, not just now, my whole life since I was a _teenager,_ you were the _only_ best friend I _allowed_ myself, and I couldn’t—when we started playing racquetball together I was terrified, tried to— _annoy_ you away with pretentious training exercises and overconfidence and when you got it into your head you had to be _better_ at it than me I was afraid you’d end up _dead_. When we were trapped on T’Lani Three and you were— _dying,_ Miles, you were _dying,_ and I couldn’t work up the nerve to just tell you the _truth_ so you’d let me try fixing the damn transmitter myself!”

"We did fix it." Miles’s voice was low, and calm, and infuriating. "And if you’ll notice, I’m _not dead,_ thanks.”

"You could have been!" Julian leapt off the couch and started to pace, not very far, more or less just turning himself in circles. "We’re colleagues! We’re friends! We’ve been friends for _five years_! We get _drunk_ together, we play ridiculous games, we reenact dogfights and viking raids in the holosuites while everyone else _laughs_ at us, we’ve been in _combat_ together, your _life_ could be left in my hands at any given moment and you found out I’ve been hiding a—a—a horrible, dangerous, _illegal_ secret from you all, that I’m—that I’m an inhuman _freak,_ that I—that I—and all you had to say was _there must be something we can do_!”

"Well, I didn’t want you to get fired!" Miles protested, incredulous.

Julian gave a completely undignified cry of frustration, whirled to face Miles, and yanked him closer by the front of his shirt until he was screaming in his face over the coffee table: “WHAT IS _WRONG_ WITH YOU?”

"Well," Miles said lightly. "I am getting a bit of a headache, now that you mention it. _Doctor_.”

Julian’s brain caught up with itself. He let go of Miles and backed rapidly away, tripping over apologies, and quite abruptly he found himself back on the couch, sobbing into his hands while Miles patted him on the back and told him he talked too much.

"Think too much, too. Guess that’s part of the problem, huh."

“ _Ghh_ ,” Julian contributed helpfully.

"You been waitin’ your whole life for someone to yell at you for this, haven’t you."

“ _Yghn_ ,” Julian confirmed.

"Well. Sorry, but it’s not gonna be me. I wouldn’t mind trackin’ down whoever put it in your head that you’re a _freak,_ though. Think you could live vicariously through their black eye?”

“ _ShhdjjFkM’lsjLvvy_ ,” Julian hiccuped, from the heart.

Miles patted him slightly harder, and reached for the glass. “Love you too. Drink the synthale, it’ll help.”


End file.
